Technology Industry Archive

On Halloween eve, what better to do than look at some of the scary and strange stories in high tech? Motorola turnaround plan getting thumbs turned down — Motorola has been in a tough spot and analysts say it won’t get easier. The whole plan to spin off the handset division has been tripped by a $397 million loss on the back of a 15 percent revenue drop. The handset division’s...

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Yesterday’s Court of Appeals of the Federal Circuit (CAFC) decision on In re Bilski continues to keep in the air the future of business method patents. It doesn’t automatically eliminate them, as many reports have erroneously suggested, but, if upheld in a likely appeal to the Supreme Court, will likely invalidate many and require some major strategic and tactical changes in...

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Verizon and Alltel get DoJ blessing, sort of — The Department of Justice have just given Verizon’s acquisition of Alltelthe go-ahead, but only if the former divests of a hundred local markets in 22 states. Verizon has already said it was willing to drop some markets. Now the question is what the FCC will say in November. And then we need to know how Alltel would have to change its...

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This must be a day for patent news. Earlier, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reaffirmed the previous In Re Bilski case so that, barring some reversal by the U.S. Supreme Court, a huge number of business method patents will be invalid, including software patents and financial method patents used in the financial services industry. Ironically, it looks as though the European...

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Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed a previous ruling in the In Re Bilski case, striking down many (if not most) business method patents and setting the stage for a likely appeal to the Supreme Court. At stake is whether companies will be able to continue a trend of patenting new business methods, or if such protections will largely disappear, immediately...

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Consumers consider cutting back on wireless handsets, services — Many connected in any way, shape, and form to the telecom industry have been counting on the continued strength of consumer and corporate demand for wireless. The theory was that people would maintain spending on cell phones. Oops, wrong number. Pole results suggest that almost 80 percent of respondents will delay buying a...

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Someone might argue that it’s early for a headstone, but the signs are clear: Sony’s scheme to own a video format has crumbled. All the money, all the time, all the effort, all for nothing. Between burdensome pricing, consumer indifference, and significant competition, the end is probably already written and the market is just coasting, waiting for the knell and the pall. Back in...

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Google wins through losing to book publishers, authors — You don’t often see times when a company manages to get a big business win out of losing a copyright lawsuit. But it looks like that is exactly what Google pulled off. For two years they’ve been in a legal battle with a number of book publishers and an authors’ organization over scanning in full libraries of books...

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Over on ZDNet, Sam Diaz argued that a tech downturn won’t be like the dot com bust and, for a number of reasons, that things won’t get that bad. I’ve got to disagree – not with his observations about how ingrained technology is, but on the ultimate outcome, because it depends on a whole lot more than how much people and companies want their gadgets and software. What is...

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Spock.com is a relatively new search engine focusing on information about people. Co-founder Jay Bhatti was formerly a Microsoft product managers in Windows server marketing and then in consumer services. He left in 2006 to help start Spock. We spoke with him about the company and its current activities. BNET: Your PR firm wrote that Spock.com is “considered the leading people search...

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